Honduras

Trócaire’s work in Honduras supports communities to improve their livelihoods, fight gender inequality and violence against women, demand their rights and hold their government to account, reduce the risk and impact of disasters and respond to disasters when they occur.

Miriam and her six-year-old daughter Maria, live in Cuyamel, a coastal village in Honduras at risk from the encroaching sea due to climate change. The situation for the residents of Cuyamel has been highlighted in Trócaire's 2017 Lent campaign.

Trócaire's Impact

1970s

Trócaire has been working in Honduras since the early 1970s, and opened a country office in the capital Tegucigalpa in 1994.

13,000

Lent

Trócaire's work supporting coastal communities impacted by climate change was highlighted in the 2017 Lent campaign.

Trócaire's Work in Honduras

Trócaire has been working in Honduras since the early 1970s, and opened a country office in 1994.

Working through local organisations, Trócaire Honduras has developed a range of programmes to include respect for human rights and protection of human rights defenders, resource rights, eradication of violence against women and disaster risk reduction.

Through partners, Trócaire Honduras also responds to frequent natural disasters that impact heavily on the country’s large number of vulnerable and marginalised communities.

Our Programmes

1.Food and Resource Rights

This programme aims to increase the amount of food and income that vulnerable households can access. We help people living in poverty to gain access to land and create varied livelihoods and multiple sources of income through community-level projects. We also work to improve the capacity of our partners so that they can develop livelihood programmes in the future.

2.Justice and Human Rights

Our partners help poor and marginalised groups to seek their political, social and economic rights. This supports better governance in Honduras by making authorities more accountable. We promote active citizenship through training and awareness-raising and giving support for communities and partners to work with local and national authorities to improve their transparency.

3.Women's Empowerment

Gender inequality has led to considerable violence against women in Honduras, as well as growing numbers of women becoming infected with HIV. This programme provides legal and psychological support to female survivors of domestic and other types of violence, supports awareness-raising and training on women’s rights for both women and men in order to change attitudes and practices, and helps women and partner organisations to advocate for better public policies for the prevention of violence and integrated support to survivors.

4.Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Response

This programme supports communities to reduce the risk and impact of disasters and to be better prepared to respond to natural disasters when they occur. We also provide emergency aid after disasters strike. We place a strong focus on reducing damage to the environment so that the impact of natural weather events is diminished.

Country Context

Although considered a middle-income country, more than two-thirds of the population of Honduras live below the poverty line, with 40% living in absolute poverty.

A coup d’état in 2009 led to a political crisis which has weakened democracy, application of the rule of law, access to justice and respect for human rights, with severe restrictions on citizen participation, social protest and freedom of expression in recent years.

High levels of inequality in access to land is a major concern, with 5% of the population owning 61% of the land, while large-scale exploitation of natural resources is causing serious socio-environmental conflicts.

Gender inequality and violence against women are also serious problems. Only 47.2% of women participate in the labour market compared with 84.4% of men (UNDP, 2016), and women earn only 62.74 % of the salary earned by men doing the same job (WEF, 2016).

Honduras is one of the most violent countries in the world with a homicide rate of 74.6 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016 (Source: UNODC).

The murder rate of women has also increased dramatically in recent years with the total number of women murdered reaching 468 in 2016 (8 per 100,000 inhabitants) (UNAH, 2017). These crimes go unpunished in the majority of cases.

Honduras is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and the impact of climate change, with droughts, flooding and hurricane damage regularly affecting crops, livelihoods and homes, and forcing those affected to evacuate their homes.